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Monday, April 23, 2007

You're Doing A Heckuva Job, Gonzo

By all accounts, the testimony of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales before the Senate Judiciary Committee was an unmitigated disaster.

When pressed to explain key discrepancies in previous statements over the firing of 8 U.S. Attorneys, Gonzales had a very fuzzy memory. 71 separate times, the embattled Attorney General couldn't remember important details.

He couldn't even recall details of a conversation between himself and a president. This alone should prove one thing...Gonzales is either a liar, or grossly incompetent.

I am not sure what would be worse, the fact that Mr. Gonzales deliberately misrepresented his role in the firings to save his hide, or the fact that he really left such important decisions to judicial neophytes such as Monica Goodling, who got their degrees from Pat Robertson's Regent University School of Law.

The fact that antipathy for the man crossed party lines and enjoyed rare bipartisan support should have sent the loud-and-clear message to the White House that the Attorney General needed to be replaced. In the case of the Attorney General it is very hard to keep up morale in the Justice Department when your leader has lost their credibility. The position means far more than merely carrying George's jockstrap...it is a post that is supposed to serve the American people, not merely Rove & Partners.

So, in that context, it is utterly both shocking, and totally revealing, to see the response of George Bush today.

If there was any doubt that Bush is the single worst leader this nation has ever seen, and an intellectual dullard to boot, it came with the following pronouncement today, regarding Gonzales' testimony. Bush said that Gonzales "went up and gave a very candid assessment, and answered every question he could possibly answer, honestly answer, in a way that increased my confidence in his ability to do the job."

Gonzales couldn't remember key details 71 times and that "increased" his confidence??? Why not just come right out and say, you're doing a heckuva job Gonzo? It would leave the same ironic taste.